Independent Games Goes Retail - First Retail Edition of Lore!

Although I have ragged on the IGF a lot lately, one of the cooler things about the IGF (and that I had forgotten about since its been quite some time sine I delt with it) is that they have a independent publishing arm known as "Moondance Games".

Each year Moondance contacts the IGF finalists and asks if they want to be on a retail compilation CD that they sell at games stores & online. This years CD includes a full version of Dark Horizons - Lore : Invasion, the very game that your's truely worked on (and the very first time that Lore has ever been available on a retail CD).

Retail games included on the CD: Dark Horizons Lore, Global Defense Network, Rocketbowl and Strange Adventures In Infinite Space

Game demos included on the CD: Gish and Creatrix

Note: There are apparently more games than this on the CD, unfortunately I cannot find the full list, if I can I will make a follow-up post in the comments.

When Distribution Channels Don't Work

As an indie game developer you have the sometimes fortunate opportunity to deal with a variety of distribution channels as you try to get your game out on the market for the masses to hopefully soak up and enjoy. Most online distributors that I have dealt with are awesome about ensuring that anyone who wants to buy a product can buy a product. So I am somewhat bemused when I am actually after a particular game that I want to purchase I cannot get it through a retail or online distributor/channel.

The particular game that I am seeking is "Rifts : Promise of Power", which is a beautiful and promising game whose only knock against it is that its for the nGage system. Now while I hear you groan the words "nGage" I want to point out that I am buying what really is the first "killer" game for the nGage for my brother who is a huge Rifts fan and the game is the only reason why he bought the nGage in the first place. No, the irony is not lost on me, the guy buys a phone for a particular game that is coming out for it and when the game comes out he cannot buy it because of Nokia's less than stellar sales channels won't permit anyone to buy him the game.

So what's wrong with Nokia's sales channels? Nokia dropped support for the nGage just before Rifts came out on the market and in turn all of the retailers that sold the nGage and nGage products dropped their stock. Heck even Nokia's Canada site doesn't keep a current stock of its nGage products and their recommended online partner (dvdonline.com) that they point you to from their Canada web site for direct online purchases doesn't carry their products either. If you are in the USA you can purchase "Rifts : Promise of Power" through the specialty retailer letstalk.com, unfortunately this retailer only deals with USA based clients and there are no "ifs", "ands" or "buts" about it. If you try to call the company from Canada you get a "invalid number" for their 1-866 number because it is regional only to the USA. If you contact their sales support email, you get a rather poorly worded (or poorly translated?) email stating that they simply will not handle your request for a phone and will only deal with you if you have a valid USA address and a credit card that has a USA based billing address.

Ya you can bet I did a double-take on this one. Me, a little indie developer who makes niche games is able to sell my product via a wide range of sales channels and distributors to anyone in the world who wants my game. But a funded game, that is pretty dammed awesome such as "Rifts : Promise of Power" gets stimied because Nokia dropped the ball with the nGage and their sales channels.

While I feel sorry for my brother because chances are he won't ever get to play this game, the guys I really feel sorry for are Backbone Entertainment (the developers of "Rifts : Promise of Power") and Palladium Books (the creators of Rifts) for having such a great product hamstrung before it even got a chance to get out the door. It's times like this I have to think that thing's aren't always so doom and gloom in the indie market like the industry says it is.

To Counteract all the Bitter Posts

IGF Congratulations & Why IGC is Better

Today the IGF announced their "finalists" for this years competition, although Dark Horizons Lore Invasion will not be a repeat finalist I do want to take a few moments to congratulate two Torque based finalists that are also developed by a pair of great teams.

Tube Twist (Technical Excellence Finalist) by 21-6 Productions: A wildly wonderful 3D puzzle game of mind numbing addiction.

Venture Tycoon : Africa (Shamus McNally Grand Prize Finalist) by Andy Schantz: Probably one of the cooler Sims I have seen in years that doesn't bog you down with bullshit stats and features. Just raw sim game play :)


Awesome work guys and a cudos to the many Torque based games that entered into this competition and unfortunately did not make "finals". Everyone did an incredible job at showing what this community is capable of producing.

With that said now have a few things that I feel that I want to get off my chest about the IGFs competition for this year and why I think its crock of shit formatting needs to be throw out the door if the whole IGF competition wants to not look like some sort of hypocritical competition of commercialism.

1) Funding

The issue of funding and technicly what is and is not an "indie" is a hot issue that the IGF has tried balance itself on and has also always failed miserably. For example, you cannot submit a game that was funded by a publisher, but you can submit a game that was funded through vulture capital or other means such as funneling money from your porn site to fund your game.

On top of this there also seems to be little to no effort put in by the judges to properly compare what a low budget game such as HackIT or Virus Blaster has done in comparison to a big budget game like Dofus. As such you can be guarenteed 99 times out of 100 that the bigger budget that you have, the greater chance of success that you have of making finalists or even winning at all. Its just a sad truth of the IGF.

2) Games are Nominated for Awards!?

This year the IGF has made a departure where they have choosen and nominated a set number of games for certain awards, which I think is the dumbest thing they could have ever done. Why? Well its simple, you are basing which games go for which prizes on a submission from back in October instead of basing it on what the developers can bring come March. Thats six fucking months of development that they have bitch slapped out the door and said to every finalist "we don't fucking care if the game you bring in March dominates every category, we pigeon holed you already". Seriously IGF, this is one of the stupidest things that you have done. As such I sincerely hope that you fix this next year.

3) Innovation? What Innovation?

This years IGF we have two categories for Innovation: Art and Audio, and my though on this is "What the fuck!" Shouldn't innovation be based on game play and how it is presented? Isn't audio and art a key and integral part not only of one another but of the entire game experiance itself?

I have a better idea for IGF, just call these two categories "Best Bling in a Game that matches AAA game standards (ie. shaders)" and "Coolest game soundtrack" because this is honestly what they will be judged on.

4) Mod Competition

I vented about this before and I take some time to vent about it again...

A) Why the hell is there a competition for Mods in the first place? I don't see how a Mod requires anywhere near the dedication and hard work that it takes to actually create a whole game from scratch. I'm sorry but that's just how I feel.
B) Why is the mod competition limited only to select games? Isn't the whole idea of the IGF supposed to be to show case the best entries possible and as such isn't limiting Mods to a few select games essentially culling out a whole swack of other great Mods on the market? Sorry but this just reeks of bullshit and is so unfair that the Mod category should have been scrapped and he/she who submitted the idea should be bitch slapped around with a trout.

5) Joining the Open and Web Categories

In previous years there was an "Web" category (for games under 10mb and thus were downloaded and played from a web site) and "Open" (anything bigger than 10mb). This year, there is just the "Main Competition" and thus a great way for a lot of great products to get lost amongst the crowd.

The End Result: Why IGC Rules over IGF!

I hope that I do not sound too bitter after getting these items off of my chest, and I am very thankful that Lore was nominated as a finalist last year (and completely understand that it was beaten out by newer and better products this year), but I really have to wonder what the hell all the hype is about IGF? While the IGF should be about celebrating indie gaming and showing the big dogs that we too have a bark and a bite, it really is IMHO all about pandering to commercialism and all the things that make the AAA games market despised for its lack of innovation and creativity.

This is why I feel that Indie Games Con (IGC) is a better, if not the best, venue for Indie games on the face of the planet today. At IGC no one cares about commercialism or how much funding you had, all that matters is how enjoyable the game that you have brought is and your peers at the event rate it based on what it provides, not on how much bling that you have to offer because you could afford to muscle your way to the top.

IGC is the show case for real innovation in this industry and it will continue to be this way as long as the IGF continues down its path as it does. As such GarageGames should be given a pat on the back for the great effort that they have done to keep IGC a real bastion of "Indie Development" here in the world as it truely is one of the last places that we will honestly see it.

My Thoughts On Why Women Don't Play Games

I read an interesting article/essay today on gameergod.com which outlined the author's views as to why there aren't many women gamers.

Although I will agree that there are a few games that have taken an overexaggerated view on how to present female characters in their games, aka the stereotypical big breasted, tiny waist vixen, it is my feeling that the author also took a very narrow minded view on what the problem really is and here's why:

1) Sexy avatars really aren't the problem, its the genre of the game thats the problem. The AAA games market is basicly dominated by a lot of accountants who are too afraid to break out of the normals, as such for years now they have been basing their decisions of which games to fund on past hits. As such if you keep looking further and further back on this evolution you will see that it goes way back to the late 80s/early 90s where guys played with tech and girls didn't. Meaning that all the games we have right now are based on what guys have liked and wanted to do in games and essentially this means shooters and simulators. Thus it doesn't take a genius to realize why women don't play these games because shooting shit and driving a tank or car doesn't really appeal to the mass market of women.

On the flip side however making Dress-up, Beuty Salon and Pony games are not the answer either (although they do sell well, but I contend that this is because of a lack of suitable games for girls and not because its what they want). These games are just as stereotypical as having some large breasted bimbo walking around with a pair of bazooka's blasting the shit out of everything. Instead I feel that the market needs to talk a closer look to break out hits like "the Sims" to really figure out what appeals both the current generation of men and women gamers and is also a massive commercial success.

2) Women actually make up the majority of game players. Yes, it's true! There is a huge market of women aged 20 to 35 who are at home raising the kids or working in an office that play games. The catch is they don't play games from the AAA publishers they play "indie" or "casual" games (you know that other market that the so-called games reporters arrogently ignore because they don't understand or have a clue) such as Solitare, Mahjong, Bejewelled and Chuzzle (to name but a few). Because of them they have made the "casual" market into a hidden gem of $2.5 billion in sales per year and in the process have made the AAA publishers stand up and take notice of all the little games that they (and many AAA gamers) arrogently wrote-off as mickey-mouse and too simple.

So why do women play casual games and not AAA game offerings? It isn't because female avatars in games drip of sex appeal, no it's because these women lack the time to invest in a AAA game (due to house chores, watching the kids, having to drive around, etc.) or simply are not used to the fast paced action of AAA games. Women of this generation (20 to 35) are not used to dealing with fast paced games, its the same reason why they cannot flip through TV stations and see what is going on on a channel as fast as a man can, they haven't been conditioned to recognize this stuff and adapt like most of us have thanks to our years of TV and Gaming experiance. I can bet you that in the next 5 or 10 years as more women from the "Nintendo" generation grow up and get older you will see them adapt to AAA game offerings because they have been conditioned as they have grown up to hectic, fast paced games.

3) The current generation of women aren't "gamers". As I stated in point 2, the current generation of women aren't gamers and didn't grow up playing games. In the next 5 to 10 years we will definately see this shift as women want to play more fast paced games and honestly won't give a rats ass if they get some cute but sexy avatar to play if the game is fun.


So in summary what have we learnt about women gamers? Well in all honesty they don't give a shit about how sexy or stereotypical an avatar is. Women gamers don't care if they are Lara Croft, a DoA girl, or Princess Toadstool, they care about the same things men do and that's "Is the game kick ass fun to play?". If you can do this while keeping in mind the psychology of the target audience (which essentially means telling your AAA marketing guru to either fuck off or explain to him in very simple words with examples why something needs to be done this way) that you are trying to hit then yes, women gamers will play your game.

Getting Older

This past Sunday was my birthday (turned 26) and I spent it with a lot of friends and family at my in-laws cabin that rests of the shores of Pigeon Lake. Aside from nearly polishing off a 1 litre bottle of Vodka in a day and a great meal, I also got a new helmet for the ski-doo/snowmobile and a gift card for a local electronics shop (I can almost hear that 360 calling my name).

One interesting thing that I discovered while we were out at the lake was that my dog has a love/hate relationship with snow. She is still pretty small so she gets cold easy (and at a mighty -20C high for the day it was pretty cold), but she's also an energetic pup that loves to jump into the freshly fallen snow and play around. If only digicams didn't fail at this temperature I would have some pictures to share.

Also as a bonus add-on to my birthday I was treated last Thursday to a delicious meal at a great restaurant here in Edmonton known as Japanese Village. Located in a historic building from the early 1900s this restaurant serves you a delicious helping of food prepared Japanese style with a master chef slicing, dicing and singing/entertaining you while he cooks. The restaurant does serve your typical sushi but they are better known for an addictively delicious steaks, shrimps, lobsters and chicken served to you with beans, soup, zuccini, mushrooms, onions and a desert bort of sherbert. Well worth checking out if you ever come to town.

I also finally recieved my DVDs from the great guys over at texturemonk.com, there were over 13 DVDs in total with a mixed set of nice high resolution reference photos combined with a few tiling textures and misc bitmaps. Overall I am very impressed with the quality of the DVDs, especially for a bargain price of $80 USD, and I am also very impressed with the guys that run texturemonk.com (since we had an issue with the DVDs getting lost in the mail, so the guys quickly sent over another set over to me, free of charge and gave me an extra month subscription for their site). As such if you are an artist looking for some a nice texture set for cheap, check out texturemonk.com, you won't be sorry.

My Views On the Canadian 2006 Federal Election

I have decided to start up a new blog where I can post my views on the forthcoming Canadian Federal Election which is taking place January 23rd, 2006. As such if you are at all interested in hearing what one Canadian thinks about this zoo that is the 2006 election, head on over.